Right angle electrical connectors may be used to establish a conductive connection between circuit boards, as in coplanar and back-panel configurations, for example. A typical right angle connector may include a connector housing and one or more electrically conductive contacts. The connector housing may be made of a dielectric material, such as a plastic for example. Each electrically conductive contact may be made of an electrically conductive material, such as a metal for example.
The connector housing may contain one or more leadframe assemblies, which may be insert molded leadframe assemblies (IMLAs), for example. An IMLA may be defined as a dielectric leadframe housing through which one or more electrically conductive contacts extends. The leadframe housing may retain the one or more electrically conductive contacts. The leadframe housing may be insert molded over a leadframe of electrically conductive contacts.
Each electrically conductive contact may have a mounting end and a mating end. The mounting end of the electrically conductive contact may be in any configuration suitable for mounting to a substrate. For example, the mounting end may be an eye-of-the-needle configuration. Alternatively, the mounting end may include a solder ball that is suitable for a ball grid array mount. The mating end may be any configuration suitable for mating with a complementary connector. For example, the mating end may be blade shaped or define a receptacle.
In a typical right-angle connector, the mating end of each electrically conductive contact extends in a direction perpendicular to the direction in which the mounting end of the contact extends. Consequently, contacts that are adjacent to one another in a leadframe assembly typically have different lengths. As a result, signal skew may be introduced in differential signals transmitted through a pair of signal contacts that are adjacent to one in the same leadframe assembly. It is desirable to limit the amount of signal skew in the differential signals to an acceptable level. Thus, an electrical connector that provides for no more than a predefined amount of signal skew between such a differential signal pair of electrical contacts would be desirable.
Additional background related to the subject matter disclosed herein may be found in U.S. Pat. No. 5,342,211, entitled “Shielded Back Plane Connector,” U.S. Pat. No. 6,379,188 entitled “Differential Signal Electrical Connectors,” U.S. Pat. No. 6,918,789, entitled “High-Speed Differential Signal Connector Particularly Suitable For Docking Applications,” U.S. Pat. No. 7,163,421, entitled “High Speed High Density Electrical Connector,” U.S. Pat. No. 7,347,740, entitled “Mechanically Robust Lead Frame Assembly For An Electrical Connector,” and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/722,797, entitled “Electrical Connector Having Ribbed Ground Plate.” The disclosure of each of the above-referenced U.S. patents and patent applications is incorporated herein by reference.